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From: Frank Peelo on 13 Jun 2008 03:27
Mark Madsen wrote:
> On Tue, 13 May 2008 14:04:09 +0100, Frank Peelo wrote:
>
>> Oddly, if I run mplayer, then I have to restart X for skype to show any
>> video. Otherwise, the Skype video display does not get refreshed: it's a
>> black rectangle unless I drag another window across it; then it contains
>> afterimages of the dragged window. This is true even if though mplayer
>> has been shut down before starting skype, and even if mplayer had been
>> displaying a movie, or something completely separate from the webcam.
>> I'd love to know why!

(although, given that it took a month to get back to this, I couldn't
describe it as a priority :) )

> Symptoms like these are often caused by a *slightly* less-than-perfect X
> setup. (Aside: once upon a time, in a galaxy quite like this one, X
> would not run at all if it was not set up perfectly, now it is a lot more
> robust, and runs even when not everything is quite tuned.)

It was set up by Mandriva (2008.0). I don't know enough to second-guess
the installer. It's a Radeon 7000 video card. No speed demon, but I like
it because it doesn't have a fan, and it has enough 3D for Compiz (and
some simple games).

From /etc/X11/xorg.conf, the video card driver is

Section "Device"
Identifier "device1"
VendorName "ATI Technologies Inc"
BoardName "ATI Radeon 9250 and earlier"
Driver "ati"
Option "DPMS"
Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps" "1"
EndSection

I tried changing "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps" to "0" (because nothing else
there looked changeable); didn't make any difference so I changed it
back. Installed compiz as well, just in case that changed anything.
Video stayed black, but didn't have afterimages when another window was
dragged across.

> Alternatively, one of mplayer or skype is trying to drive your display at
> a different bpp setting from the other. You can experiment with
> different values for "DefaultDepth" in xorg.conf, but make sure that you
> have a backup of your current xorg.conf in a safe place before you start
> changing things.

Didn't find a DefaultDepth. There's

Section "Screen"
...
DefaultColorDepth 16

is that the one? My xorg.conf defines depths 8, 15, 16 and 24. Couldn't
imagine it working with less than 16, but I tried DefaultColorDepth 24.
Again no difference.

I have finally got a Logitech Fusion webcam from eBay, so at least when
it lights up at all, the picture is OK. And the Fusion has a [USB]
microphone as well, which gives a much better sound than the one I had
plugged into the sound card, which is a nice bonus.

Frank
From: David W. Hodgins on 13 Jun 2008 14:24
On Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:27:42 -0400, Frank Peelo <f32pnospam(a)eircom.net> wrote:

> From /etc/X11/xorg.conf, the video card driver is
> Section "Device"
> Identifier "device1"
> VendorName "ATI Technologies Inc"
> BoardName "ATI Radeon 9250 and earlier"
> Driver "ati"
> Option "DPMS"
> Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps" "1"
> EndSection

I have a radeon 9200SE, and have the added the following additional options
Option "AccelMethod" "XAA"
Option "AGPMode" "8"
Option "ColorTiling" "on"

I don't use skype, so I don't know if the any of the above will help. The
AGPMode is needed as the card is mis-identified as 4x, by default.

Regards, Dave Hodgins

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